Prague - (Game Thread) GAME ON!!!

[Remus West]

Playing alone on the KIM forum pretty much sucked. I'll say that. Waiting for my partner was a bit of a joke. I have no clue really why Scoop waited as long as he did, as I think he way overplayed his 'Oh I am causing them so much grief, I love it" angle and we never got to actually coordinate any scans.

I think his being so sick probably contributed to that at least a little bit.

[stessier]

because there is no incentive to do so. If we simply interrogate there is nothing accomplished. If we torture there is nothing accomplished IF we are correct since KIM simply leaves and misses a scan which is the exact thing that happens if he leaves on his own. If we torture and are wrong though we lose an agent and are no better off regarding the Mole. Losing the agent would have been very costly and getting rid of the mole not such a huge benefit as noted by the amount of time you spent without a mole compared to us and how close we both were to winning - time stamps were the only difference. The risk to benefit ratio of attempting to cull our team was way to low.

I still disagree. With KIM gone, you could share clues. That is not "nothing accomplished". The only reason it was close was because your team decided to spill it's guts while the Mole was still around. With that, KIM wouldn't have had enough clues to make a guess today.

[stessier]

Playing alone on the KIM forum pretty much sucked. I'll say that. Waiting for my partner was a bit of a joke. I have no clue really why Scoop waited as long as he did, as I think he way overplayed his 'Oh I am causing them so much grief, I love it" angle and we never got to actually coordinate any scans.

Why didn't you come out in the thread and tell who you had already scanned and who you were going to scan that night? It would have been a one way communication, but it would have kept you guys from treading too much on each other toes. And it's not like we could have done anything about it.

[Newcastle]

I have mixed feelings on this game.

First off thanks Grund for running it & creating it. I realize it probably took a good amount of effort in order to pull it off. Also please dont take my criticisms personally, they mainly revolve around my own centric view.

I think on the whole, I wouldn't play something like this again, unless changes were made. My main gripe was about 2/3 of the way in (last week primarily), when I felt like ; and we really couldnt move the game forward outside of guessing the solution (which i didnt participate in). It felt like the game had bogged down into no team would help the other, and they also had the power to prevent the other teams from moving forward. So it was a zero sum game. I experienced this level of frustration in only 1 game prior, and that was Scoop's startship game, where i was leading a on a of engineers and no team would give an inch to move the game forward.

-An additional aspect to this is that I simply suck at Logic puzzles, never been good at them, and they've always beguiled me when i've tried to solve them. They just aint my thing. I didn't even try a crack at solving the puzzle. My brain just doesnt work that way.

So that really left the only way i could participate, or cooperate was via participating in the forums.

i will say i did have fun in the initial phases in being coy w/ who i was (much to the aggravation to my teammates)...though i still do think i was providing a strategic help to the team(look who unagi scanned on night 3- scoop!), and i'll stick to that (though my team will distinctly state otherwise).

-I also enjoyed some parts of the back & forth in trying to strike the deals, and playing off Stessier at times, in my "promising rainbows, unicorns & world peace" personna in the game.

Again this is just me and the way I am. I am pleased that others enjoyed themselves, and had a good time solving the puzzle.

I like Remus idea of having the teams maybe find their way to the secret forums somehow.

[Unagi]

Playing alone on the KIM forum pretty much sucked. I'll say that. Waiting for my partner was a bit of a joke. I have no clue really why Scoop waited as long as he did, as I think he way overplayed his 'Oh I am causing them so much grief, I love it" angle and we never got to actually coordinate any scans.

Why didn't you come out in the thread and tell who you had already scanned and who you were going to scan that night? It would have been a one way communication, but it would have kept you guys from treading too much on each other toes. And it's not like we could have done anything about it.

I asssumed that if my Mole joined me, we could coordinate our scans and still make use of the daily interrogations to some degree.

If I came out and told everyone who I needed info on - Uh, gee.

My mistake was thinking that Scoop would join me much quicker.

OR that he would have taken advantage of those times we tried to interrogate Qantaga - and just use that as his move to my Forum. We ended the game without that fact on Qantaga... (I was shocked to learn that he didn't have the 2nd scan on Qantaga)

Aslo, me just telling 'the mole' who I had scanned, and who I planned to scan - in this forum, wouldn't have kept me from scanning HIM accidentally, twice - as I did with Scoop.

[Unagi]

Playing alone on the KIM forum pretty much sucked. I'll say that. Waiting for my partner was a bit of a joke. I have no clue really why Scoop waited as long as he did, as I think he way overplayed his 'Oh I am causing them so much grief, I love it" angle and we never got to actually coordinate any scans.

I think his being so sick probably contributed to that at least a little bit.

Clearly it did at first (and I don't fault him), but once I heard he was better - I really still wasn't sure how much thought he was putting into the strategy of not joining me. Oh well.

[El Guapo]

because there is no incentive to do so. If we simply interrogate there is nothing accomplished. If we torture there is nothing accomplished IF we are correct since KIM simply leaves and misses a scan which is the exact thing that happens if he leaves on his own. If we torture and are wrong though we lose an agent and are no better off regarding the Mole. Losing the agent would have been very costly and getting rid of the mole not such a huge benefit as noted by the amount of time you spent without a mole compared to us and how close we both were to winning - time stamps were the only difference. The risk to benefit ratio of attempting to cull our team was way to low.

I still disagree. With KIM gone, you could share clues. That is not "nothing accomplished". The only reason it was close was because your team decided to spill it's guts while the Mole was still around. With that, KIM wouldn't have had enough clues to make a guess today.

I think the main issue was really the risk of being wrong. Towards the end I was confident that the mole was either Scoop or Remus. But even at that point, with 50/50 odds...if we're wrong, that's a HUGE HUGE setback. That's two interrogations (almost 20% of the game) getting no new information, we're down one agent (which makes a big difference in voting), AND we still have the mole. And I couldn't see any sound way of getting my odds of mole-itude up to something safe-ish like 75%+...it's not like your standard WW game where you can mine votes and discussion in comparison to who turned out to be a wolf or not.

Heck, for most of the game if the team could've straight up killed someone to try to get the mole, it probably would've been me.

I wonder if there should be some sort of counter-spy mechanic where someone on each team has the power to try to root out their mole. The problem is a straight up scan for moles is probably too powerful with a team size around 5, since a mole would probably be scanned pretty quickly. Maybe something that the team has to vote on that would generate some verifiable track record to work with...I dunno.

I like the "have to work your way into the team forum idea", FWIW.

[El Guapo]

Playing alone on the KIM forum pretty much sucked. I'll say that. Waiting for my partner was a bit of a joke. I have no clue really why Scoop waited as long as he did, as I think he way overplayed his 'Oh I am causing them so much grief, I love it" angle and we never got to actually coordinate any scans.

I think his being so sick probably contributed to that at least a little bit.

Clearly it did at first (and I don't fault him), but once I heard he was better - I really still wasn't sure how much thought he was putting into the strategy of not joining me. Oh well.

FWIW he did ultimately manage to get a bunch of clues from us by hanging around. Do you think he would've generated more by bolting sooner via coordinating scans?

[Remus West]

because there is no incentive to do so. If we simply interrogate there is nothing accomplished. If we torture there is nothing accomplished IF we are correct since KIM simply leaves and misses a scan which is the exact thing that happens if he leaves on his own. If we torture and are wrong though we lose an agent and are no better off regarding the Mole. Losing the agent would have been very costly and getting rid of the mole not such a huge benefit as noted by the amount of time you spent without a mole compared to us and how close we both were to winning - time stamps were the only difference. The risk to benefit ratio of attempting to cull our team was way to low.

I still disagree. With KIM gone, you could share clues. That is not "nothing accomplished". The only reason it was close was because your team decided to spill it's guts while the Mole was still around. With that, KIM wouldn't have had enough clues to make a guess today.

I think the main issue was really the risk of being wrong. Towards the end I was confident that the mole was either Scoop or Remus. But even at that point, with 50/50 odds...if we're wrong, that's a HUGE HUGE setback. That's two interrogations (almost 20% of the game) getting no new information, we're down one agent (which makes a big difference in voting), AND we still have the mole. And I couldn't see any sound way of getting my odds of mole-itude up to something safe-ish like 75%+...it's not like your standard WW game where you can mine votes and discussion in comparison to who turned out to be a wolf or not.

This was exactly my point. The cost of being wrong so greatly outweighed the reward for being right that the incentive to try and remove the Mole simply wasn't there.

Best case on Mole hunting:
1st day Clue (true/not true doesn't matter)
2nd day 2 true clues and the Mole removed

Worst case:
1st day miss so real clue revealed that your team would have been able to share
2nd day miss 2nd real clue revealed - other teams now up on you by 2 clues Mole still around. Proceed to next agent and possible full repeat.

How to tell the difference? Does your guy die. Simply not worth it.

[Lassr]

Of all those choice solutions stess listed earlier we chose #17 to submit yesterday. It came down to #1 or #17. So we could have won yesterday but #17 eliminated every other possibility except #1, and if we submitted #1 and was wrong it would have left a few more choices for today (without anymore clues). I think we all felt #1 was probably the correct one but we actually thought we may have a had a little more time to play around than it turned out. But we definitely wanted to get our guess in first thing this morning just in case...whew!

[Lassr]

because there is no incentive to do so. If we simply interrogate there is nothing accomplished. If we torture there is nothing accomplished IF we are correct since KIM simply leaves and misses a scan which is the exact thing that happens if he leaves on his own. If we torture and are wrong though we lose an agent and are no better off regarding the Mole. Losing the agent would have been very costly and getting rid of the mole not such a huge benefit as noted by the amount of time you spent without a mole compared to us and how close we both were to winning - time stamps were the only difference. The risk to benefit ratio of attempting to cull our team was way to low.

I still disagree. With KIM gone, you could share clues. That is not "nothing accomplished". The only reason it was close was because your team decided to spill it's guts while the Mole was still around. With that, KIM wouldn't have had enough clues to make a guess today.

I think the main issue was really the risk of being wrong. Towards the end I was confident that the mole was either Scoop or Remus. But even at that point, with 50/50 odds...if we're wrong, that's a HUGE HUGE setback. That's two interrogations (almost 20% of the game) getting no new information, we're down one agent (which makes a big difference in voting), AND we still have the mole. And I couldn't see any sound way of getting my odds of mole-itude up to something safe-ish like 75%+...it's not like your standard WW game where you can mine votes and discussion in comparison to who turned out to be a wolf or not.

This was exactly my point. The cost of being wrong so greatly outweighed the reward for being right that the incentive to try and remove the Mole simply wasn't there.

Best case on Mole hunting:
1st day Clue (true/not true doesn't matter)
2nd day 2 true clues and the Mole removed

Worst case:
1st day miss so real clue revealed that your team would have been able to share
2nd day miss 2nd real clue revealed - other teams now up on you by 2 clues Mole still around. Proceed to next agent and possible full repeat.

How to tell the difference? Does your guy die. Simply not worth it.

Some way to tell if a player is a mole would be great or at least have no deaths. tortured non-mole is banned from the secret forum or something. He can still participate and vote but not help out in the forum.

We only voted Unagi because we asked in our forum if Unagi was here then he better speak up. He did not so we assumed he was on your team or our mole.

[El Guapo]

I'm a little baffled how people in this game seemed to get so worked up about the possibility of deaths. In my mind death is a part of every WW game - lots of people die, including often someone on night 0 or day 1. So I was a little baffled about why people would get so worked up about the possibility of just one person dying this game.

[stessier]

I'm a little baffled how people in this game seemed to get so worked up about the possibility of deaths. In my mind death is a part of every WW game - lots of people die, including often someone on night 0 or day 1. So I was a little baffled about why people would get so worked up about the possibility of just one person dying this game.

First, your own team was afraid of death. It's one of the reasons you wouldn't go after your own Mole. So you can't be all that baffled.

Second, I wasn't really concerned about any death - I was concerned about bb2112's death. If we lost him, we weren't going to get another clue unless KIM wanted us to have it. Why should we agree to that?

FInally, The whole game can/and was played without anyone dying, so why force it? You could get everything you needed without it. The game needed balanced teams if there was going to be checks and balances to keep one team from steam rolling. And besides, we had the MAD plan. I'm not sure why you were so quick to discount it. If we lost our Seer, what chance did we have? You were suddenly going to start voting for your own team?

[Remus West]

I'm a little baffled how people in this game seemed to get so worked up about the possibility of deaths. In my mind death is a part of every WW game - lots of people die, including often someone on night 0 or day 1. So I was a little baffled about why people would get so worked up about the possibility of just one person dying this game.

Yeah, I have no problem with deaths in these games. However, I would have a HUGE issue with banning a guy from his team's forum. Talk about not having a thing to do. Ugh.

For this game though, I believe the "no death" mechanic was to avoid one team eliminating themselves. I think that if KIM suffered death due to torture then there may be an incentive to hunt for them AND an incentive for them to leave their "teams". KIM having the exact same consequences for being tortured as they did for leaving on their own really reduced any desire I had to find our KIM agent in that manner.

[El Guapo]

I'm a little baffled how people in this game seemed to get so worked up about the possibility of deaths. In my mind death is a part of every WW game - lots of people die, including often someone on night 0 or day 1. So I was a little baffled about why people would get so worked up about the possibility of just one person dying this game.

First, your own team was afraid of death. It's one of the reasons you wouldn't go after your own Mole. So you can't be all that baffled.

Second, I wasn't really concerned about any death - I was concerned about bb2112's death. If we lost him, we weren't going to get another clue unless KIM wanted us to have it. Why should we agree to that?

FInally, The whole game can/and was played without anyone dying, so why force it? You could get everything you needed without it. The game needed balanced teams if there was going to be checks and balances to keep one team from steam rolling. And besides, we had the MAD plan. I'm not sure why you were so quick to discount it. If we lost our Seer, what chance did we have? You were suddenly going to start voting for your own team?

Oh, I totally get not wanting people on your team to die, that's common sense. But I got the sense (and maybe you guys were just playing it up for purposes of the debate) that people felt like killing an agent was somehow wrong / unfair / unsportsmanlike etc. It's more your last point - yeah, it *can* be played without anyone dying, but dying's a mechanic in the game, so I don't see any reason to rule that out (though again, obviously you don't want someone on your own team to die).

[stessier]

I'm a little baffled how people in this game seemed to get so worked up about the possibility of deaths. In my mind death is a part of every WW game - lots of people die, including often someone on night 0 or day 1. So I was a little baffled about why people would get so worked up about the possibility of just one person dying this game.

First, your own team was afraid of death. It's one of the reasons you wouldn't go after your own Mole. So you can't be all that baffled.

Second, I wasn't really concerned about any death - I was concerned about bb2112's death. If we lost him, we weren't going to get another clue unless KIM wanted us to have it. Why should we agree to that?

FInally, The whole game can/and was played without anyone dying, so why force it? You could get everything you needed without it. The game needed balanced teams if there was going to be checks and balances to keep one team from steam rolling. And besides, we had the MAD plan. I'm not sure why you were so quick to discount it. If we lost our Seer, what chance did we have? You were suddenly going to start voting for your own team?

Oh, I totally get not wanting people on your team to die, that's common sense. But I got the sense (and maybe you guys were just playing it up for purposes of the debate) that people felt like killing an agent was somehow wrong / unfair / unsportsmanlike etc. It's more your last point - yeah, it *can* be played without anyone dying, but dying's a mechanic in the game, so I don't see any reason to rule that out (though again, obviously you don't want someone on your own team to die).

Ok, that I agree with. I would have had no problem with someone on your team dying while looking for your Mole. I think at one point Unagi said he wanted to torture Remus. That I was not for. Because one team with both KIM could torture whoever they wanted, I did not want to torture anyone on KIM's sayso. I would only do it if all of team GS was on board so we wouldn't get the blame in the end. Does that make any sense (not being snarky - just not sure if I explained well)?

[Unagi]

FWIW he did ultimately manage to get a bunch of clues from us by hanging around. Do you think he would've generated more by bolting sooner via coordinating scans?

Yes. Absolutely.
Especially since he voted in ways (unknowningly... not his fault) that totally kept GS's advantage alive and never helped to up our KIM game.
Particularly - we both needed Qantaga's clue and we had a great way to get it. missed.
Or how about me helping to get the 2nd clue from Remus. Not sure we would have needed to do that.

Coordinating our scans was to be a Huge advantage. I left Jan 7th - BEFORE I was tortured even (after I was interrogated twice)...

The way I saw it (FROM THE KIM side) was the best use for us was to WASTE 2 interrogations each ,and for the 3rd Torture (like what happened for me).

I had hoped that Mole#2 would join me (after he knew I was at the drop point) and then we would both work together to be sure we had him Interrogate with 2 Lies... (or at least 1Lie +Torture).

Early enough - and the number of overlapping scans would have been very slim, and from that point forward we would have 2 scans a night - with no risk of wasting them (in that sense). That is so huge.

That would force GS and BB into a game of working together (and ha!) and we could likely benefit a bit from those interrogation too. Instead - Scoop (blind to my info) helped get stessier interrogated twice (and I didn't need any of those, and tried to hint at that in game a number of times.) and I actually scanned Scoop twice! And we (the game) never ONCE wasted ANY interrogations on Mole#2. Ugggh!

AND I STILL GOT 17/18 clues when everone else did. (I had 15 without Scoop!)

Yes. A thousand times, Yes. (IMHO)

[stessier]

Yes. A thousand times, Yes. (IMHO)

You're not alone. I wasn't pretending my shock every morning when he still wasn't with you. Just completely astounding. I don't think we (either GS or BB) would have had a chance had he left early on.

[El Guapo]

I'm a little baffled how people in this game seemed to get so worked up about the possibility of deaths. In my mind death is a part of every WW game - lots of people die, including often someone on night 0 or day 1. So I was a little baffled about why people would get so worked up about the possibility of just one person dying this game.

First, your own team was afraid of death. It's one of the reasons you wouldn't go after your own Mole. So you can't be all that baffled.

Second, I wasn't really concerned about any death - I was concerned about bb2112's death. If we lost him, we weren't going to get another clue unless KIM wanted us to have it. Why should we agree to that?

FInally, The whole game can/and was played without anyone dying, so why force it? You could get everything you needed without it. The game needed balanced teams if there was going to be checks and balances to keep one team from steam rolling. And besides, we had the MAD plan. I'm not sure why you were so quick to discount it. If we lost our Seer, what chance did we have? You were suddenly going to start voting for your own team?

Oh, I totally get not wanting people on your team to die, that's common sense. But I got the sense (and maybe you guys were just playing it up for purposes of the debate) that people felt like killing an agent was somehow wrong / unfair / unsportsmanlike etc. It's more your last point - yeah, it *can* be played without anyone dying, but dying's a mechanic in the game, so I don't see any reason to rule that out (though again, obviously you don't want someone on your own team to die).

Ok, that I agree with. I would have had no problem with someone on your team dying while looking for your Mole. I think at one point Unagi said he wanted to torture Remus. That I was not for. Because one team with both KIM could torture whoever they wanted, I did not want to torture anyone on KIM's sayso. I would only do it if all of team GS was on board so we wouldn't get the blame in the end. Does that make any sense (not being snarky - just not sure if I explained well)?

I certainly get not wanting to do what KIM wants, insofar as they are presumably doing what's in their best interest. I don't really see how "blame" is a huge factor, since in the end all team's interests are opposed. So I don't see why one wouldn't considering working with KIM on one interrogation / torture then working with the other team on the other. That's why I wasn't terribly receptive to Newcastle's sunshine & rainbows arguments...ultimately the teams interests diverge, so I don't put a lot of stock in the importance of building up good will.

As for the "doomsday" threat...initially I discounted it because you described it as an "everyone loses" scenario, and I figured that angry or not no team would rationally choose an "I lose" option regardless of if you felt screwed by the torture or not. (Except maybe in a meta sense to set up the believability of the threat in a Prague II game or something, but that's kind of a stretch).

Afterwards when I thought about it some more it became apparent that you would refuse to vote because, having lost your seer (and it was pretty evident from Unagi that bb was your seer), you would have lost your incentive to ensure an interrogation. Which made sense, but at that point it made sense to keep discounting it since I figured that would give it less leverage in negotiations between the teams. (By making it more believable that we would walk away from the table, it makes it more likely that the interrogation settles on our terms).

You probably would've had better luck admitting that bb was your seer (which was obvious anyways) and just pointing out that you would have no interest in ensuring an interrogation anymore, instead of describing it as an apocalyptic "everyone loses" option, which did not come across as credible to me.

[stessier]

You probably would've had better luck admitting that bb was your seer (which was obvious anyways) and just pointing out that you would have no interest in ensuring an interrogation anymore, instead of describing it as an apocalyptic "everyone loses" option

I had thought about that but we hadn't been blocked yet so I didn't want to give the still hidden Scoop any true info on who to block (we thought Unagi only knew because he had missed on someone else).

which did not come across as credible to me.

I'm going to have to work on my stern internet face. If you read our forum, you'll know I wasn't kidding. Don't underestimate my stubborness and willingness to see the world burn if I can't have my way.

That being said, I only know what I would have done. I suspect at least some of my team would have attempted to soldier on. But I would have been in the background prodding them to stop it, so who knows?

[El Guapo]

Well, the other problem is that by putting it in a threatening "take our ball and go home" way, that dramatically increased my desire to ignore it. No one wants to negotiate with terrorists after all. Well, except for KIM terrorists - they seem like nice folk.

[Lassr]

the difference with deaths in this game is the death would totally screw the team that lost a member. The team with the numbers advantage could just torture at will. Torture until it's Kim vs 1 team.

If we had lost our scanner then we would have probably just abandoned the game because we would have had nothing to do. Losing a non scanner would keep us alive to get facts but we would have held no power in the game thread with votes so most likely would have stuck to our forum and talked. It almost came down to that anyhow because you had the numbers because your mole was still active.

So yes we are used to deaths in these games but in this particular game 1 death came be devastating for a team and throw the whole game out of balance.

[bb2112]

The advantage to the team with more players in this game is obvious. Death may be a mechanic in other games, but in those there aren't equal teams. That is why there are only 25% - 30% bad guys to good. As soon as teams become equal the bad guys win. In this game, as soon as one side gets a numbers advantage, the team at the disadvantage has most likely lost.

[El Guapo]

Really though, why would KIM agree to whittle down one team? They're incentive once a team is a man down would be to shut down the votes and just use their scans, I would think. If they agree to mow down one team, then the other is going to amass clues from interrogations and scans.

If anything, KIM should immediately agree to vote with the team that just lost a member to off someone from the other team. (and the minority team + 2 KIM would still be a majority).

[bb2112]

Why would KIM bother. The team with the person advantage would be busy torturing the team down a man while KIM would be double scanning the team with the majority. KIM would be getting clues at a faster rate.

[Lassr]

Really though, why would KIM agree to whittle down one team? They're incentive once a team is a man down would be to shut down the votes and just use their scans, I would think. If they agree to mow down one team, then the other is going to amass clues from interrogations and scans.

If anything, KIM should immediately agree to vote with the team that just lost a member to off someone from the other team. (and the minority team + 2 KIM would still be a majority).

All according if both moles have left. In this case Scoop was still active, any vote against his team instantly reveals him. KIM then could have just let it go into stale mate and only KIM would get a clue.

[Newcastle]

losing a member, would have been devastating I think. Even though the game mechanics allowed it, it would have really hurt the team who lost a member.

By putting any person on a team, where they are assured defeat, what's their incentive to continue? Fairplay? Give it the ole college try? You can kind of make a case for that; but i would have quit playing or I would have worked toward GS defeat. I mean i already lost, writing was on the wall. Yes, this is hypothetical, and i probably would have hung around a turn or two, but once it was obvious what was happening, I would have given a token effort at best.

By threatening our scanner, you pretty much threatened any shot we had at victory. If he woudl have been taken out, I probably would have just sat out the rest of the game.

I dont think you can characterize it as a "take my ball home" mentality; more like a realistic view of whats going to happen and why waste my efforts?

[Remus West]

By threatening our scanner, you pretty much threatened any shot we had at victory. If he woudl have been taken out, I probably would have just sat out the rest of the game.

I dont think you can characterize it as a "take my ball home" mentality; more like a realistic view of whats going to happen and why waste my efforts?

Which was why I said we were not going to be killing bb2112. I even said in our private forum that if we were to do so we should plan on the next scan being our last one.

Come to think of it, we probably should have pushed to torture him the final day rather than interogate me.

[Grundbegriff]

I'm actually a little confused because we had a full solution without the 18th. I'm wondering where we guessed or inferred that we technically shouldn't have.

You made up for the missing clue by (a) framing some assumptions and then (b) learning how many of your items were right.

If you never know how many are right along the way, and you follow only the inferences rather than projecting assumptions, then all 18 clues are necessary.

It's possible that telling how many are right is too potent, since it amounts to an extra clue.

[stessier]

I'm actually a little confused because we had a full solution without the 18th. I'm wondering where we guessed or inferred that we technically shouldn't have.

You made up for the missing clue by (a) framing some assumptions and then (b) learning how many of your items were right.

If you never know how many are right along the way, and you follow only the inferences rather than projecting assumptions, then all 18 clues are necessary.

It's possible that telling how many are right is too potent, since it amounts to an extra clue.

Except that Unagi never guessed, only had 17 clues, and got only 1 unique solution. Seems like Q's last clue was superfluous.

[El Guapo]

Why would KIM bother. The team with the person advantage would be busy torturing the team down a man while KIM would be double scanning the team with the majority. KIM would be getting clues at a faster rate.

The team with a person advantage still doesn't have a majority, so they couldn't whittle down the other team further without KIM's help. KIM would have to reveal at least one member to do so, but they would want to do so.

[Grundbegriff]

I honestly don't know. I could have all 18, but maybe only 17.

I only needed 17 to solve it, too.

Not really. You had 17 via the normal mechanisms, but Scoop told you the 18th in the forum, and you chose to trust it on the basis of your guess that he wouldn't have lied about his first clue during the revelation cycle. That guess turned out to be correct, so you were actually working with all 18.

[El Guapo]

By threatening our scanner, you pretty much threatened any shot we had at victory. If he woudl have been taken out, I probably would have just sat out the rest of the game.

I dont think you can characterize it as a "take my ball home" mentality; more like a realistic view of whats going to happen and why waste my efforts?

Which was why I said we were not going to be killing bb2112. I even said in our private forum that if we were to do so we should plan on the next scan being our last one.

Come to think of it, we probably should have pushed to torture him the final day rather than interogate me.

The second point was what I was saying. As the game approaches the end, the incentive grew to just torture bb2112 (Unagi permitting), and then just go to guesses. (plus GS would've gotten a one scan advantage over BB from that).

[El Guapo]

By threatening our scanner, you pretty much threatened any shot we had at victory.

That was the idea.

[Unagi]

So Scoop actually fed you guys his two real clues? Just seems at that point in the game, lying to you guys would have been fine.

[Grundbegriff]

What were the time stamps on the submissions?

I'm posting as a read, so forgive please if I respond to questions already answered.

bb2112/Rolf for Blusterberg Group: 2012 Feb 03, Fri 08:43 am
Qantaga/Derivative for Goldman Saxon: 2012 Feb 03, Fri 10:14 am
Unagi/Cardigan for KIM, Strike Force Umbrage: 2012 Feb 03, Fri 10:34 am

[El Guapo]

So Scoop actually fed you guys his two real clues? Just seems at that point in the game, lying to you guys would have been fine.

We had enough clues that a false clue stood a high chance of being detected. He could have either tried it anyways or simply refused to produce a clue, but either would have probably or definitely outed him as KIM. The problem with that is that we would then have not shared our additional clues. So he gave us true clues, but got clues back in return.

[Grundbegriff]

I agree with all of this. However, I spent many many game days (and thus real life weeks) simply following orders because I so little of my team's information on which to base any deductions. When I posted on our forum the list of clues we had publically gathered that was 1 Clue short of the full list of my knowledge. There really is nothing for the non-scanners to do other than vote where they are told to.

This was a critical difference between the teams: the team that eliminated its mole early was able to collaborate more. The team that couldn't identify its mole was unable to come up with a way to collaborate.

One possible solution would've been to have everyone but the Handler, and perhaps one friend, reveal clues.
Discussions could have ensued that might have narrowed the solution set and might've exposed the Mole if he lied.
This would've revealed 4 or 6 clues to the Mole, but lacking the 2 or 4 held back might've been enough of a handicap to give that team an edge over KIM, at least in regard to time.
Of course, success would've depended in part on whom that Mole had chosen to scan. In this particular game, the KIM agents lost many scans to duplication and team-scanning, so it might've worked.

[Grundbegriff]

What about if your Section Head got a one way PM each night to as many people as he wanted telling them one clue. Kind of like a dead drop. It could be whatever he wanted (real/fake). That way, everyone could work on solving the puzzle.

Interesting idea.

[Qantaga]

So Scoop actually fed you guys his two real clues? Just seems at that point in the game, lying to you guys would have been fine.

He gave me one real clue, that turned out to be unnecessary in the long run. (Look for my next post).

He gave me a second clue that was fabricated. He was either very savvy or very lucky, because he gave me the false clue "The threatening nation does not wish to put boots on ground," when his true clue was "The threatening nation does not wish to incite a civil war." Had he selected "apply economic pressure," "derail the peace process," or "enforce the no fly zone," I would have known his lie immediately.

Because he substituted the one falsity that did not immediately reveal himself, he made me choose my first submission from an amalgam of three grids (a Remus/El Guapo grid, a Remus/Scoop grid, and a El Guapo/Scoop grid).

While it is still unlikely that I would have submitted the correct solution on the next to last day, I would have made my guesses differently.

Edit: Fixed Scoop's true clue above, as I previously duplicated the false and true ones.